Gentle Art Of Dunking Is Revived

MARCOVITZ

I was snooping around the tables at the Q Mart the other day when I saw a stack of old photography magazines from the '50s. The guy wanted $25 for the stack. I offered $20 and we settled on $21.

I brought the stack home and started leafing through the old magazines when I found, perfectly preserved, an old postcard pressed between two pages. It advertised an establishment known as "Mammy's Donut Waffle Shop," which you could find at the entrance of Steeplechase Pier at Pennsylvania Avenue and the Boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J.

The postcard featured a drawing of Mammy's as well as an inset showing "A Lesson in the Gentle Art of Dunking." The inset displayed human hands in various configurations holding doughnuts over coffee cups. It included this caption: "Some prefer the dainty grip ... while some prefer the mighty fist ... and some grab it 'til it chokes ... but best of all just let it soak."

I set the postcard aside and continued leafing through the old magazines, but every few minutes I found myself gazing at the postcard and wondering whatever happened to the gentle art of dunking. Certainly, I don't dunk my doughnuts. I don't think many other people dunk, either.

So yesterday I stopped in at Yum Yum Bake Shop on W. Broad Street in Quakertown. I quickly found store manager Laurel Teat and asked her whether people still dunk their doughnuts.

"Some people do, but not a whole lot," she said. "Most people get doughnuts with filling and they aren't good for dunking."

I glanced over Teat's shoulder and saw racks of doughnuts for sale. I saw puffy, iced, aromatic pillows of dough, labeled with such names as

I asked Teat what percentage of her clientele still dunks its doughnuts. Teat gave the question some thought, then speculated that dunkers probably represent 10 or 15 percent of her customer base.

Next, I ordered a plain old-fashioned doughnut and a cup of coffee with cream. I found a stool at the counter and dunked my doughnut. Following the instructions on the postcard, I gripped it with a mighty fist and let it soak. When I lifted the doughnut out of the coffee, the soppy part fell off and landed in the cup. I fished it out with my spoon and slurped it down.

I dunked a second time. Again, the doughnut fell apart. On my third try I dunked quickly, wetting the doughnut for no more than a second. This time, the doughnut stayed intact. Apparently, a second is all that is needed for the doughnut to absorb enough coffee to give it an extra tangy taste. I made a mental note of that for my next dunking adventure.

Meanwhile, I kept watch around me. During the 15 minutes or so I sat in the Yum Yum, nobody else dunked. I briefly thought about continuing my research at the nearest Dunkin Donuts, but I concluded that despite the name I probably wouldn't find dunkers there, either.

When I got back to the office I called the Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce and found myself on the phone with Bill McGinly, director of the chamber's small business development center. I asked McGinly if he remembered Mammy's.

"Absolutely," he said. "I used to date the waitresses; that's why I went there."

McGinly said Steeplechase Pier was torn down about 25 years ago. He said Mammy's was razed along with the pier and it never reopened in another location.

He also said that nothing was built on the old Steeplechase site; all that remains is an empty stretch of beach. McGinly said he was sorry to see the old doughnut place go.

I'm sorry to see it go, too. That means it's entirely up to me to revive the gentle art of dunking.